First Mac, a photographers dream!

[Trillium]

I Just got my very first Mac this week, a new 24" iMac, and I'm just blown away. For months had been trying to decide between a mac pro with an ACD or an iMac.

I'm a professional photographer and just want to let any other photogs out there know that these new iMacs won't leave you wishing you had purchased a pro(something I was worried about).

The rig I have, a 3.06g w/ 4gigs of ram, runs Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom at lightning speed. I get zero progress bars and it runs perfectly silent. The screen is amazingly beautiful and I've been pouring through hundreds of older photos just to see how much better they look on the screen. The screen is so sharp and crisp that I'm now noticing dust spots that slipped through on photos I had adjusted on my previous monitor.

Since most people only post when they have a problem, I wanted to go ahead and give some very positive feedback for anyone who's been debating getting an iMac.





.... Now I just have to hold out 2 more weeks for the 3g iPhone!

 

[NStocks]

Great, i'm thinking of getting a similar setup which will also be used for photography, and my first ever Mac. Did you upgrade the graphic at all, if not is the colour reproduction still very good?

NStocks

 

[bertpalmer]

Is screen glare a problem with the glossy screen?

 

[Nordichund]

I Just got my very first Mac this week, a new 24" iMac, and I'm just blown away. For months had been trying to decide between a mac pro with an ACD or an iMac.

I'm a professional photographer and just want to let any other photogs out there know that these new iMacs won't leave you wishing you had purchased a pro(something I was worried about).


Since most people only post when they have a problem, I wanted to go ahead and give some very positive feedback for anyone who's been debating getting an iMac.

I think many people would be interested in knowing in your experience as a professional photographer, is how the colours of the pictures on your screen actually print out. Do the colour tones stay the same or are there any discrepancies from what is shown on screen to what is actually printed?

 

[Trillium]

To answer your questions...


I did upgrade the graphics card, but I did so because I'm also a gamer. For non-3D apps there shouldn't be any difference between the cards.

As for the glossy screen glare issue. It was something I was very concerned about also. The only situations I see where glare would be a problem is if you had a window or bright light source directly behind you. Glare can be a problem for any screen, even a CRT, if you place it in a bad spot. At my previous job we had our photo computers, with matte CRT screens, in a room with lots of windows. The glare was so bad we had to make cardboard blinders to go around our computers. My personal Mac is situated in a room with a window at 7 o'clock to me and It doesn't cause a problem.

As for the colors on screen printing out. That's a complicated issue to explain. Monitors have a much higher color and contrast range than paper. Basically the answer to your question is "No," but not for any fault of the iMac screen. Paper just cannot print the vibrant color range you see on a monitor. Depending on what you are printing on, you will have to assign a color profile or gamma to your screen that will change it to match the range of your print. For example: The screen profile I use for the newspaper work makes the images on screen look very washed out and dull when compared to the color profile I use for magazine work.


Hope that helps